Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Promoted From The Comments

Is a response to this post by someone named Commontater. I have two reasons for the promotion. First, he spent some time on it, and I want to reward the effort. Second, responding is much easier with the whole thing in view. Here is his entire comment. My responses are in bold:

"First of all your ignorance shows too easily when you try to equate Islam with Christianity. You are making a cheap attempt to slander and demean the existence of Christians, especially the Christian foundation of this country. You say “By way of comparison, Afghanistan's constitution says “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of Islam.” Afghanistan, you know, is the place where they execute converts to Christianity.“

I ask you to look around, do you see Christians executing converts to Islam in this country? Do you see Christians executing atheist? No you don’t, Christians to a very large degree are a very compassionate people helping the unfortunate and downtrodden. It is Christian doctrine to turn the other cheek.

No, I never slandered Christians. The point of the post was that ARA's principle that God's Law, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, is supreme in our land is the equivalent of the Afghan law that makes Islam the rule of the land. Both principles give the state the power to punish people for violating religious precepts. Islamists in Afghanistan use that power. I do not think Christians would also do so, but the point of the post was that I don't want to leave it up to them. I trust the law, not men.

The sympathetic cause that you see as a danger is only a desire that the nation might return to some morals and common decency in our culture. If that scares you then you scare me. Actually, I have no problem with 'morals and decency.' What scares me is that this is often code for one person imposing their scruples on everyone else. Your outlook on life is what got us into this moral breakdown that the country is suffering from now. Really? I caused the War in Iraq? The corruption of the Republican Party? The president's repeated lies and lawbreaking? Air and water pollution? Global warming? Poverty? Or did you have some other 'moral breakdown in mind? Only people with their eyes closed cannot see the nearly complete breakdown of our nation. My eyes are open, but I think we see different breakdowns. This breakdown is caused by the behaviors so often championed by people who love to live their lives with no moral guidelines. Certainly. For example, Dubya's firm belief in his own infalibility and total disregard of traditional just war theories caused the breakdown in Iraq. There is nothing wrong with having Moore-ality. No, there is nothing wrong with believing the first commandment. But there is something wrong with using your elected office to persuade other people so to believe. I will support him and any candidate who are true statesmen, no matter what ticket they run on. You are not going to support many candidates. He is one of the very few that has a conviction of principals instead of running after the money like most politicians do these days. You have noticed, I'm sure, that according to the latest reports he has spent big bucks trying to raise money. The problem is that no-one is giving it to him.

The United States was given birth by a people who fled the persecutions of tyranny, both religious and political. Amen. And who wanted to make some money. They designed a government that gave people religious freedom and yet it requires an internal moral character to make it work. I agree. When our government was created, the majority of the people lived their lives in good moral character as taught from the Christian bible. That's why they owned all those slaves, huh? And that 'thou shall not steal' stuff did not apply to property owned by Indians, did it? Our open free society flourished and it worked. When a majority of the people no longer have an internal love for and the will to commit themselves to moral goodness the system will fail and we are seeing that now. Really? Where? How? Examples, please? The US system will not work while its people have no love for morality. Why not? And what do you mean by morality? We are drifting every day into an ever increasing immorality all the while claiming our civil rights and freedom to do so. Again, examples please. If you cannot see the causal relationship of immorality to our destruction, then you really are stupid. Or you have done nothing to help me to see it. The end will be a very hard crash indeed and I for one do not wish that upon our posterity. The right to live immoral lives is an empty claim for personal liberty because a society will not last long under such conditions. Liberty is something that requires respect and today it is twisted into every kind of perversion. So what is liberty then? The freedom to live in a way that does not offend you? Wow, how exciting. The last virtue of a degenerate society is tolerance. No, tolerance is the first virtue of a free society. We are all different, and we are not going to live together very succesfully if some of us insist that everyone else think and act in the same manner. That does not mean all ideas are equal. It just means everyone has a right to be wrong.

Our nation was founded as a republic based on Christian morals and that is what made it strong. Now it has gradually shifted towards a democracy. No argument on the polity, but you have heard too many sermons if you think this nation was founded on christian principles. The people are voting for their rights to have every conceivable sinful lifestyle. I thought it was the activist judges at fault here? they are daily contributing to the destruction of our nation. Now we a reaping the fruits of a degenerate society. Granting the existence of the problem, what do we do to solve it? Do we establish a monarchy? Enforce levitical law? What do you want to do? The following wise observations hold true for a people who love their sin just as much as it does with the economies of a democracy. Feel free to substitute immorality for largess, selfishness and dependency. How about substituting lobbyists? Haliburton? HomeLand Security? Karl Rove? Richard Land? James Dobson? All are destructive. So are my suggestions.

'A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form ofgovernment. It can only exist until the voters discoverthat they can vote themselves largess from the publictreasury. From that time on the majority always votesfor the candidates promising the most benefits from thepublic treasury, with the results that a democracyalways collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followedby a dictatorship.'

'The average age of the world's great civilizationshas been 200 years. These nations haveprogressed through this sequence:from bondage to spiritual faithfrom spiritual faith to great couragefrom courage to liberty from liberty to abundance from abundance to selfishnessfrom selfishness to complacencyfrom complacency to apathyfrom apathy to dependency from dependency back to bondage.'" Sounds great, but . . . . This is descriptive, that does not by itself mean it is also prescriptive. That yesterday I progressed from home to work to the Summit Club to work to home to the Mellow Mushroom (hmmm, pizza, hmmm, beer) to home does not mean I will follow the same path today. Further, where are the citations? How do I know this is even an accurate description?